VERNON, B.C. -- In a week that's put Asian curling in the spotlight like never before, Japan's Moe Meguro continued to write an unlikely script with a stunning 6-4 win over Switzerland's Mirjam Ott in the Page Playoff 3 vs 4 game here at the Ford World Womens Curling Championship Friday afternoon.

The victory means Japan will play in Saturday afternoon's semi-final against the winner of tonight's Page Playoff 1 vs 2 game between Canada's Jennifer Jones and China's Bingyu Wang.

Switzerland, meanwhile, has now been relegated to Saturday night's bronze medal game.

"Our gold is over," said a dejected Ott.

Japan scored early and often to put the Swiss on their heels, taking a deuce in the third end and then stealing singles in each of the next three ends to take a 5-1 lead into the seventh end.

The Swiss battled back with a deuce in eight and a steal in nine and Ott had Meguro in serious trouble in the tenth end, with a Swiss rock on the four-foot, all kinds of guards out front and a chance to put one more guard up with her last.

But Ott's guard never curled enough and it left the Swiss counter half-exposed, allowing Meguro with the last rock of the game to tap it out the back of the house and stick around for the win.

The Japanese seemed just as surprised with their victory as everyone else was that they had just beaten the two-time Olympic silver medallist skip from Switzerland.

"Yeah, I can't believe it," said Japan third Mari Motohashi, who curled a sizzling 94 percent against Ott.

The Japanese advanced to the 3 vs 4 game with a 7-3 win earlier in the day over Denmark's Angelina Jensen.

With both China and Japan in the final four, an Asian country will for the first time here this weekend win a medal at the world curling championships.

Motohashi cautioned, however, that her team will have to play better as the weekend progresses.

"I want to make more shots and my teammates too, because the late ends weren't so good." she said.

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